Boeing's Woes Shouldn't Be an Indictment of Electric Cars

These days, you don't need to be an engineer to know what a lithium-ion battery is. Half the country now knows that lithium-ion chemistries played a role in fires aboard Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The term has been used in newspapers, on television news programs, and on tens of thousands of websites around the world.

So it's probably inevitable that much of the public is now making the connection between Boeing's fires and electric vehicles. And news organizations are helping make that connection.

A recent NBC News story asked whether Boeing's woes would "short-circuit" electric cars. Numerous other news sites have tracked the stock market effects of the debacle on electric vehicle manufacturers. And a Chicago Tribune story about imported products even used a graphic depicting burning bread in a toaster with Boeing's name on it. A caption under the photo asked, "...what might be expected of lithium-cobalt oxide batteries?"

If all of that is beginning to sound like an indictment of lithium-ion batteries, then that's a shame.

Yes, it's true that today's electric cars and plug-in hybrids use lithium-ion batteries. And it's true that lithium-ion is more prone to overheating than, say, lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride chemistries. But the term that too often gets left out of these discussions is "engineering." This is what engineers do. It's what they're good at. They take energy sources and make them do work. And if they do their jobs right, then they do it safely.

"No matter how you slice it, a lithium-ion battery, or any high-performance battery, is a package of energy," Elton Cairns, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, and a designer of fuel cells for NASA's Gemini flights, told Design News. "If they had put a similarly-sized vessel of gasoline in place of that Boeing battery, it would have been an even bigger fire hazard."

To be sure, the lithium cobalt oxide chemistry used by Boeing is even more energetic than other lithium chemistries. But that's not really the issue. The issue is that engineers are supposed to determine the energy level, and then build in mechanisms to make the situation safe for users.

That's why engineers at General Motors put 144 plates filled with liquid coolant between the lithium-ion cells on the Chevy Volt. It's why Toyota uses 42 sensors to monitor temperatures of the Prius PHV's lithium-ion batteries, as well as three fans to cool the cells. It's also why engineers use special electrical connectors to prevent against shorts inside and outside their batteries. And why they employ battery management ICs to monitor performance. It's all part of the process of learning to manage the energy.

The point is, lithium-ion is energetic, but with proper engineering, not dangerous. Over many decades, engineers have learned how to safely operate internal combustion engines with gasoline, stoves with natural gas, and jets with jet fuel. Yet, we don't fret about the gasoline, jet fuel, or natural gas. Why? Because we expect engineers to manage the risks. And engineers will do the same with lithium-ion batteries, assuming our risk-averse society doesn't block the way.

"As long as you have a battery that contains a lot of energy, you'll never have 100 percent protection against some kind of failure," Cairns told us. "It's all a matter of proper design and acceptance of a certain amount of risk."

New technologies are always the target of abuse just like the new kid in a high school. When the fed managed to set a few EVs on fire, this got enormous coverage which ignored the fact that, in one case a seriously damaged vehicle was stored in an unsafe fashion and in another the gasoline vehicle parked beside the EV caught fire taking the EV with it. This piqued my curiousity. Fortunately, there are pretty good publicly available stats to look at. Even though there aren't that many EVs around, the proportion of EVs catching fire proves to be trivial relative to the proportion of gasoline powered cars catching fire while the occurence of spontaneous combustion of gasoline powered cars is astronomically higher than for EVs. Not only that, the stat for vehicle fires causing death is similarly skewed - an ordinary IC vehicle is much more likely to fry its occupants than an EV (on a per vehicle basis). And yet, which one gets the press coverage? This is the classic irrational fear of new things which the press likes to play up. At one time they put out a broadly repeated story that automobiles were dangerous because driving at more than 17 mph could be harmfull. They haven't done a good gasoline fired story since the days of the Firenza.

It's interesting that in the article there is a reference that a similar amount of energy in the form of gasoline being a bigger fire hazard. I guess that big tank of jet fuel contained in the same plane, that DIDN't catch fire BTW, is proof only that anything touched by the Green Groupies will be politicized until nothing is left in the conversation but hyperbole.

The fact is, this article (a good one) has a title that's more ironic than probably intended. Boing's problems ARE an indictment of Electric Car's use of LiIon technology. If Boing cannot get it right, with the massive safety critical emphasis placed on passenger plane design, how could ANY car company (with the emphasis on minimizing both NRE and recurring cost) be expected to get it right?

Hyperbole aside, Boing's cluster will hopefully help make electric cars and hybrids safer by the lesson's learned (when they are learned, I'll hold off judgment until then). It certainly points out the non-trivial nature of advanced battery technology.

My Hybrid uses NiMH technology, not perfect but acceptably safe. Is it's energy density really lower than LiION after you take into account the additional weight of the necessary cooling?

The reason for the fires is still somewhat of a mystery at this point, Rich. But your comment about not being conservative enough in their battery protection is probably right. The experts I've talked to have said that -- whatever the reasons for the incidents -- active cooling would have mitigated some of the risk.

I like this article very much. But in aviation the risk should be precise evaluated and allways minimized (the cost underlinks risk). Li-Ion will remain the most interesting electrical energy storage solution until the large TFBs will come ...2030???

This debarcle reminds me of event's in other industrys, Fix Or Repair Daily fitted a 'new' (to them) diesel engine to an existing product, Perkin's gave them the thermal load data and specified the minimum radiator needed, Fix Or Repair Daily's designers however went with a too small rad. resulting in cooked engines with cracked cylinder heads. Perkins after a short while of replacing engine's at their cost refused to supply anymore unless the rad. was upsized, Fix Or Repair Daily refused to do so and sourced an engine from another supplier, this one being less powerful needed less cooling, but Fix Or Repair Daily's designers fitted a huge cross-flow rad. more than twice the size needed, IF they'd used that with the Perkin's unit's it would have been fine, but the 'loss of face' admitting they were wrong was not acceptable.

Fix Or Repair Daily also had a series of trucks a few years later which were involved in several fatal 'accidents', each time the rear wheels had locked up under braking whilst unloaded slewing the truck sideways into oncoming traffic or pedestrian walkways. The fault was simply the designer deciding that a load/unload valve to compensate for load weight and grip level changes wasn't required. A practical braking systems engineer contracted to solve the issue tried various tricks, including graphite loading the brake shoes, but every time the rears locked up without warning, he fitted a load valve from a larger truck in the same range and it cured the problem. Fix Or Repair Daily's answer to his report was to tel him he was wrong and to fit smaller rear brakes, which whilst fine unloaded were not upto the job when loaded!

I suspect Boeing's designers had access to the huge knowlege pool on L-ion tech, but for space/cost reasons, and factors I will not speculate upon publicly, went with the smallest package possible, living in hope they'd get away without the cooling others, such as auto industry designers, know will be required. Long term if they don't admit their error those with a tech background will refuse to fly in a Boeing, the public perception of other L-ion use will still be tarnished, poor design choice shouldn't be an option, design by accountants needs to be stopped when it involves 'mission and safety critical' systems.

Perhaps asking accountants about reputational damage and limitation of risk needs to be part of their, and designers, training?

Design News readers spoke loudly and clearly after our recent news story about a resurgence in manufacturing -- and manufacturing jobs. Commenters doubted the manufacturers, describing them as H-1B visa promoters, corporate crybabies, and clowns. They argued that US manufacturers aren’t willing to train workers, preferring instead to import cheap labor from abroad.

Using wireless chips and accessories, engineers can now extract data from the unlikeliest of places -- pumps, motors, bridges, conveyors, refineries, cooling towers, parking garages, down-hole drills and just about anything else that can benefit from monitoring.

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